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Should You Salt a Child’s Food?

Q

Is it safe to add salt to a 5-year-old's food?

Reader Question • 175 votes

A

Yes, in moderation. High salt intake is linked with an increased risk of high blood pressure, and the American Heart Association and other groups recommend that children limit sodium intake to 1,500 to 2,300 milligrams a day (a teaspoon of salt contains about 2,300 milligrams of sodium). But kids typically get far more than that, usually from restaurant fare and processed foods, which account for 77 percent of the sodium in Americans’ diets.

“Our sodium intake is well in excess of the requirements, and the challenge is that we control relatively little of that,” unless we cook from scratch, said Dr. William Dietz, chairman of the Sumner M. Redstone Global Center for Prevention and Wellness at George Washington University. The salt that a parent adds to food “is probably not going to tip the balance,” he said. “But parents — both fathers and mothers — should be reading nutrition labels and be cognizant of the amount of sodium that a food contains.”

Adding a pinch of salt to foods can also be a useful tool to condition children to like nutritious — yet bitter — foods, like broccoli or cauliflower. “What salt does in many cuisines around the world is take the bitter edge out of food and make it more palatable,” said Julie Mennella, a biopsychologist at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia.

It’s a “no-brainer,” Dr. Mennella said, for a parent to salt a food like broccoli. “You’re teaching the different flavors in which broccoli can be experienced.” Studies show that once children associate a vegetable’s flavor with a more appealing flavor, like a salty or cheesy topping, their taste buds become trained to like the vegetable’s flavor even after the topping is taken away.

Perhaps the most important factor to consider: what do you want to model for your child? “We have to stop thinking about feeding children differently than us,” Dr. Mennella said. She noted that part of how we define ourselves as a family is how we eat, and the earlier you expose children to the healthy flavors of the family, the faster they’ll learn to like them. “So if you’re adding a little salt and that’s how you prepare it because that’s how it tastes good to you, especially if you’re adding it with the salt shaker, the impact on the sodium content is negligible.”